Police Outnumber Attendees At Rally

BRISTOL — City leaders confirmed on Tuesday that police outnumbered spectators at the NAACP's rally over the weekend.

And the very sparsely attended gathering ended up being expensive for taxpayers: The overtime bill for police topped $11,000.

Despite good weather, about 35 people showed up for the ``Equal Justice Under the Law'' rally Saturday on the plaza between city hall and police headquarters. The city's branch of the NAACP had advised the city beforehand that it anticipated a crowd of 200 or more, according to a report by Chief John DiVenere.

City police deployed 44 officers, supervisors and detectives -- all on overtime -- to provide security for the event, DiVenere told Mayor William Stortz in a report Monday. That included 27 mostly uniformed officers who shut down North Main Street and stood behind crowd-control barricades. Others directed traffic around the rally area, some in plainclothes circulated along North Main Street and through the nearby Bristol Centre Mall parking lot, and several observed from nearby rooftops.

``We had to anticipate counter demonstrators and other groups to oppose the NAACP. We planned for the worst and hoped for the best,'' DiVenere wrote in his report. ``If we had staffed less and something happened, we would have been blamed for not providing proper protection.''

The cost was about $11,400. Stortz said Tuesday that this figure didn't include the expense of public works employees delivering barricades last week, fuel for idling police cruisers at the blocked-off intersections or similar relatively small costs.

Organizers expected a bigger turnout, acknowledged William Whitehead, president of the city's NAACP chapter. He said the police presence looked too large for the size of the rally, but he said police did a good job.

``If there had been a problem, at least they would have been there,'' he said. ``The crowd was small, but we got our point across -- just treat us as you would treat someone else.''

City council member Kevin McCauley praised the police administration for being prepared. He said he was unhappy about the expense but doesn't blame police.

Council member Ellen Zoppo said the overtime was a necessary expense, adding ``People have to understand that's what public safety is about -- it's not a profit-making endeavor.''

Council member Art Ward said the expense was justified to maintain safety and said he hopes the rally will be ``a catalyst to achieve what the [police] chief said was his goal all along: Try to make better that which is not the best, or expand on what is the best.''

NAACP speakers complained of police harassment and discrimination at the rally but cited few specifics and offered no new information. The police department is in the midst of a diversity training program that will cost more than $160,000; it was scheduled after allegations arose in 2005 of covert racist radio broadcasts by off-duty police. Investigators have not been able to prove racist slurs were ever broadcast, but did conclude that a group of officers believed the radio station's unofficial call letters stood for a racist slogan.